The term Catholic Sex-Education has a variety of meanings, dependent
upon the assumptions of those using it. Those exercising their
assumptions, sometimes little thought-out about so intimate a
subject, include:

Professional sex-educators, a largely self-anointed group
lacking in objective standards by which their programs might be
evaluated by established professional groups, but with a clear
agenda directed toward influencing the human sexual development
of young people.

Catholic School administrators, principals and teachers,
a group with reduced resources for competing with the public schools
to provide value-added - as opposed to value-free - education,
and a group also subject to many intense pressures to conform
with the spirit of the secular majority.

Catholic parents, the group responsible for the upbringing
of children in a world with a variety of dangers in the field
of human sexuality, and a group which has been poorly served in
this task by established policies largely unrecognized as failures by Catholic educational administrators,
even in this time of the twilight of the Sexual Revolution.

The importance of sex-education
is nearly universally recognized, but poorly defined in most people's
minds. To most it means some combination of

Instructing children and young people in programs that
will insure that

They don't fall victim to HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted
Diseases, and that

They don't become pregnant.

Instituting new models of education for

Overcoming perceived prudishness and hypocrisy
about the human sexual faculty, and

Enabling children to enjoy a healthy and enlightened sex-life.

There is agreement on all sides of the sex-education issue about
the prime goals of shielding children from lethal diseases and
life-limiting early parenthood; yet the sex-education establishment
has little to show for its self-proclaimed expertise and its claim to exclusive competence in the area of human sexuality. Over the greater than 50 years that Planned Parenthood has taken the leadership in opposing
the churches' traditional treatment of human sexuality, there
have been vast expenditures of governmental and foundation grant
monies for sex-education and pregnancy prevention, but

Rates teenage and out-of-wedlock pregnancy have skyrocketed,
and

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS and STDs have reached pandemic
proportions.

These are problems that did not exist at nearly the present level of intensity before Planned
Parenthood sponsored development of the Pill and instituted sex-education
programs that contradict traditional Monotheistic value systems.

After a frank look is taken at the tandem history of contraception and the sexual revolution,
common-sense reactions range from

The observation that the sex-education programs of the established experts
have been a total failure and should be jettisoned by parents, to

The belief that the rise of the Sexual Revolution and the development of Contraception and secular Sex-Education might actually be related.

Planned Parenthood's own Harris survey on sex-education showed that disease and pregnancy
problems are most unlikely among children brought up in moderately
strict, religious households where there is parental supervision.
Yet Planned Parenthood and other sex-education programs have consistently
sought to

Devalue religious influence in the sex-education of young
people and

Quarantine young people from their parents in the intimate
treatment of their sex-education.

These trends in the majority, secular culture's treatment of sex-education are in nearly direct
opposition to the central tenets of the Catholic religion and
the beliefs held by the mainline Protestant denominations
before 1930. The contrast between the Planned Parenthood and the
Catholic treatment of children's human sexuality education needs
is so striking that they could be reasonably said to be complete
opposites.

Common sense would seem to dictate that there should
be some compromising of both sides' seemingly extreme views. Yet
Planned Parenthood shows no signs of calling a truce in its long-standing
opposition to traditional Catholic teachings on human sexuality;
and the Catholic Church would have long ago disappeared as a significant
force in the life of society if it had compromised its central
beliefs.

Either the Church's or
Planned Parenthood's vision for the treatment of human sexuality in
society will likely prevail, one to the nearly complete exclusion
of the other.

Given the consistent long-term increase in serious social
problems associated with human sexuality in a period of massive
change in society's values, it needs to be recognized that there has been
no significant benefit from attempts at melding secular and religious
education programs for human sexuality; and any imagined, attempted marriage between Christianity and Planned Parenthood is extremely unlikely to produce such benefits. Either the Church's or
Planned Parenthood's vision for the treatment of human sexuality in
society will likely prevail, one to the nearly complete exclusion
of the other.

These remarks will then present the little-understood
Catholic teachings on human sexuality education in the belief
that there is value in remaining faithful to a religious tradition
that has maintained its identity for two millennia in opposition
to dominant secular values. When the infant Jesus was first presented
to the world at the temple in Jerusalem, His mother was told that
he would be "a sign of opposition destined for the falling
and rising of many." These remarks will then proceed with
the assumption that there is good to be found in an affirmative,
"pro-active" Catholic human sexuality education that
is completely distinct from majority-secular sex-education.